A wastewater treatment system -
also known as a wastewater treatment plant, is an integrated system that
receives the raw sewage from homes and businesses, that is properly treated
before it is discharged to the environment.

Wastewater
treatment plants receive the sewage via sanitary sewers which can be from one or
more communities. The raw sewage is then processed through a series of
treatment stages that cleans the water by removing impurities, pathogens,
chemicals and other contaminants, so that it may be safely released back into
the environment.

A
typical wastewater treatment plant treats millions of gallons of wastewater -
which, in some cases, also treats stormwater, every day. Wastewater
treatment plants must operate 24 hours every day, 365 days per year.

On
average, a drop of wastewater will spend about 15-18 hours traveling through the
wastewater treatment system while undergoing treatment.

“spending
hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars every year for oil,
much of it from the Middle East, is just about the single stupidest thing that
modern society could possibly do. It’s very difficult to think of anything
more idiotic than that.”
~ R. James Woolsey, Jr., former
Director of the CIA

According to R. James Woolsey, for Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, “The basic insight is to realize that global warming, the geopolitics of oil, and warfare in the Persian Gulf are not separate problems — they are aspects of a single problem, the West’s dependence on oil."